Rafa had won the AO in 2009 and either IW or Miami (can't remember offhand), and almost swept the clay season, losing only to Fed in the Madrid final after that brutal 4h match the day before with Djoker. Rafa had killed Soderling in Rome and was undefeated at RG.

Sure, Rosol was less of a name than Sod, but at least Rafa had a shaky match in Halle and the first round to make him ripe for a possible loss.

And the fact that Nadal is still in his prime not like an old Fed or an old Sampras who are/were more vulnerable to these types of upsets... And here people were saying that Nadal is the best grass-courter of recent times....

I have to say this wasn't TOO shocking if you saw Nadal's level at Halle or the first round of wimbledon.. The guy stunk to high heavens on grass this year.

I'm surprised Nadal lost to this guy , but he still looked like he was playing on clay at wimbledon this year. It was much rougher transition for him this year compared to years past for whatever reason.. I assumed a big hitter was going to take him out regardless.

Nadal has been playing passive and pushing and pushing on grass and dropping balls short.. Always a recipe for disaster unless its clay. He's also getting older and has ALOT of mileage on him for a 26 year old. Physically he's closer to 30 then many think. He's had a lot of injuries, a VERY taxing game.. You can only go so long playing like that anyways

Add to the fact Nadal is close to as UNBEATABLE as you can get on clay.. Grass?? Ehh he's a good player.. I certainly don't think he's GREAT on grass though.. He's very vulnerable to a big hitting aggressive, big serving player on grass.. And if the opposition doesn't mentally tank they can take Nadal out

in 09 he wasnt quite the proven clay god that he is now, but the 09 loss was bigger, thought Rosol's beatdown was more spectacular.

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09? Nadal not an established clay god? Preposterous. :twisted:

People were calling for all top players except Nadal to withdraw and practice for Wimbledon. Considering how Nadal massacred Federer (and the other 6 guys he played) in 2008 and how easily he was destroying his early round opponents at RG 2009, it was one of the biggest upsets ever.

Soderling stopped Nadal from acquiring 8 consecutive french open titles.

4r has 16 players. second week of a gs is srs bsns. everyone there is there cos they are good which means anyone can beat anyone on the right day. sods was a big upset but he was a good player, multiple titles, lots of finals, had beaten top players and made second week of slams b4

2r has 64 players. its where the faves are still supposed to be beating up quallies. rosol had no pedigree, hated grass, never shown nothing to nobody. he lost 1st round of quallies last year ffs. shouldnt even be in the 2r, let alone beating the 2 seed n multi-champ

I apologize if this offends you but it took Rafa eclipsing Borg's to persuade me Nadal is the king. Sorry for my abnormally high standards of proof; I could have blindly accepted him sooner like some others have, but hey.

I apologize if this offends you but it took Rafa eclipsing Borg's to persuade me Nadal is the king. Sorry for my abnormally high standards of proof; I could have blindly accepted him sooner like some others have, but hey.

This was bigger; Soderling was already something of a name player, had won multiple tour-level titles before the 2009 French Open, was actually seeded at the event in question, and was already well-established as a dangerous guy. A quick scan through his record reveals that he had five wins over top 10 players in 2008 alone (the year before he played Nadal at the French), had just beaten world's number 7 Simon in a warm-up event to the French, and had beaten Ferrer the round before he beat Nadal.

By contrast, I had never even seen Rosol play that I can remember before this match. He was a world's-number-100 who had never won a tour-level tournament, never even made a final, had only one top-10 win in his life, and had never even qualified for Wimbledon before this year. If you had gone through the draw at the start of this tournament and picked out the guys least likely to beat Nadal, Rosol would probably have been in the "top" 10. Soderling was a dangerous lower-level seed; Rosol was a member of that little fringe of essentially anonymous guys who somehow find their way into the draw every year.

- World #1
- Unbeaten in RG, since '05
- Got some kind of clay surface winning record going on (although not a streak)
- Even *******s couldn't say he could be beat
- The yr before Rafa demolished Fed to win the title